


don't let our strength grow thin

by VolxdoSioda



Series: Crowe Altius Week 2019 (Complete) [1]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Crowe Altius Lives, Crowe Week 2019, Crowe aggressively adopts her Crown Prince, Gen, Glaive fluff, No Kingsglaive Traitors verse, Noctis gets adopted by the Glaives, Nyx plays himself and loses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-22
Updated: 2019-04-22
Packaged: 2020-01-23 19:42:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,946
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18556522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VolxdoSioda/pseuds/VolxdoSioda
Summary: Working in the Glaive, you're expected to be ready to move at a moment's notice. When you're the Prince, it's something similar, but opposite in a lot of ways. Crowe didn't expect Noctis to be able to keep up.





	don't let our strength grow thin

Among the Kingsglaive, one of the first things you learn as a recruit is that time is everything. Every second must be put to the best possible use, every moment a cost you must keep count of. In ten seconds, your comrades could be dead on the ground. In two minutes, the kingdom could fall to ruination. In half an hour, your king could be dead. Time is everything. And so the Glaives are trained early to be fleet of foot, and ready to fly at a single word.

When it was told that Noctis Lucis Caelum, heir to the throne and a wet-behind-the-ears pup that had never seen true combat, would be joining Crowe's squad for the foreseeable future, she expected the worst. There were stories passed around by the cleaning crews of the Citadel concerning the Prince's sleeping habits, and none of them were flattering (to say the least). Add in to the fact that Ignis Scientia was responsible for single-handedly wrangling the Prince around, and it didn't paint a picture Crowe wanted to think about. 

But expectation and reality could be vastly different things.

The first morning, Crowe strides into the training hall where she'd ordered Noctis to be ("Six AM rookie, on the damned dot."), expecting to find no Prince, and an empty hall instead. What she finds instead is Noctis, fully clad in uniform, weapons already assembled, and spell flasks laid out ready for her inspection. Simply because she can (and maybe because it almost seems too good to be true), she turns on heel and crowds him, flipping his hood back with a single move of her hand. 

He's awake beneath it, looking like something Libertus' hellish demon of a cat dragged in, but his eyes meet hers when she looks at him, and he tilts his head wordlessly, cocking an eyebrow. 

Awake, aware, if not slightly scruffy. Alright, she's dealt with worse.

"Let's see what you've got," she says, and then moves over to the table, grabs one of the flasks, and without so much as a by-your-leave, chucks it at him.

Well, if he wasn't awake before the fire spell got him, he certainly is  _after._

 

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

 

"So, scale of one to ten," Tredd says after the day is over and they're all gathered back at the bar, a grouping of Glaives knee-to-knee around a too-small table. "How bad?"

Crowe sips at her beer, debating the answer. Truth be told, Noctis isn't an absolute nightmare to deal with. He's bumbling his way through the training with some manner of grace - most of the bumbling coming more from the newness of what it means to be a Glaive rather than a Prince than any actual idioticy. He's learning though, jumping through every hoop she sets up and then some. He'd been half-sprawled out on the floor by the time Crowe had called it, sweating like crazy, but he'd made it through the end. 

"Five," she says. When Nyx' eyebrows shoot up and Libertus makes a disbelieving noise, she adds, "He's not half-bad. It's mainly the whole newness that's eating him."

"Ah, newbie syndrome. Been there, done that," Nyx says, tipping his beer in an imaginary salute to their Prince. "He'll get over it. But apart from that?"

"He's decent. His spells need more  _oomph,_ and he needs to learn to move his damned legs instead of relying on his phasing trick. But it could be worse." She takes another swig.

"And the rumors about Sleeping Beauty?" Libertus asks.

She shrugs. "He was at the training hall when I asked him to be. Looked like something your cat ate and spat out, but he was there."

That sends half the guys snickering, because Libertus' cat is a fat ugly bastard who likes coming up to people he likes and coughing hairballs onto their feet. The image of their Prince in such a position is no doubt amusing, about as much so the day Drautos met him in the halls and the look on his face when Lib's cat decided Drautos was his new  _best friend._

"Well, he's got me tomorrow," Nyx says. "I'll run him through his paces."

"Watch his left hand," Crowe advises, "He likes to keep an ice spell or two up his sleeve for good measure."

"Don't worry," Nyx flaps his hand. "I'll keep an eye on him."

 

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

 

The next evening, when Nyx arrives, Crowe takes one look at him and grins. The rest of the table looks up, and half a second later they're all roaring with laughter.

Nyx, hero of the Kingsglaive and all around show off, is missing an eyebrow. It looks like it's been singed off.

"So," Crowe says, when she gets a moment through the hysterical laughter of the boys, "I see training went well."

"Fuck off," Nyx says cheerfully, and sits down, reaching for her beer. He chugs it back in two swigs. "That little shit waited until I had him pinned."

"He does that, yes," Crowe says. "He's rather foxy like that."

"You think I'm foxy?"

The laughter is immediately stiffled, hands coming up to slap over each other's mouths as Crowe turns to the door.

And her eyebrows shoot up.

"Well now. Don't you clean up nice."

This morning Noctis had his full length of hair. Now it's been trimmed down until it resembles a crew cut. 

"He took my hair."

"I gathered."

It's not a terrible look on him, she thinks, and flicks her eyes across the table.

Oh.

_Oho._

Nyx has certainly got eyes for it. He's trying not to, but he likes it. She grins. Gets a terrible idea.

"Well, since you're here, come sit." She drags the chair between her and Nyx out, and pats it. "We were just fixing to order."

"It's okay, I just came to grab my watch. Left it beh-- _urk!"_ She hooks him by his neck with an arm as he's passing by, swinging him into the chair before he can do more than blink. "...or I guess I'll sit."

"Wonderful choice," she says, and pushes a bottle towards him. "Drink?"

"I'm fine."

"Coward."

"Designated driver, since you kicked Iggy out."

She hums. Ignis' first and last attempts to fetch Noctis out of the training halls when  _he_ felt it appropriate ended with a brief scuffle and a briefer boot up his ass. Noctis has begged Ignis not to pick a fight over it, and coaxed his Hand around to the idea with the promise of practicing his driving. Ignis still gives her dirty looks over it, but she's never let that stop her before, and she's not about to start. 

She's never half-assed anything in her life, and she's not about to start where their Prince is concerned. He wants to be a Glaive, he'll do as the Glaives do.

"So, what happened?" She gestures to his head. "I heard his side. What about yours?"

"Ah. This came after I burned his eyebrow off."

"I may or may not have aimed a knife at his hair and severed a few hairs," Nyx says sweetly. "The least I could do."

"Bastard."

"Little shit."

Yeah, Crowe thinks with amusement, sipping her beer and ignoring the way Nyx' eyes are tracing Noctis' hair in favor of saving her sanity. Kid's not half bad.

 

x-x-x-x-x-x-x

 

Her opinion of Noctis Lucis Caelum rises several degrees over the course of his training in her squad. The first assignment alone is enough to raise the bar high, and leave it there. It's her and Nyx and Pelna and Noctis, taking turns in shifts. It's meant to be a simple recon mission, in and out. But it drags, and Drautos finally gets on comm to tell them  _the enemy is making unknown movements, record all activity and wait for the signal before pulling out,_ and so they swap into teams and start taking naps.

Her and Nyx are sound asleep when Noctis takes his first squad out, and Pelna says it was like watching a coeurl - utterly silent, merciless, and fast. 

The reason he takes the squad out is for their protection. Nobody is supposed to know they're here, but somehow they suspect, or perhaps they just think it's the Crownsguard. Either way, a troop starts making their way towards where Nyx and Crowe are hunkered down, and Noctis acts. And over the next four hours, as they sleep, he continues to act.

Dusk falls. Pelna wakes Nyx and Crowe.

Noctis does not sleep.

Here now, he shines, Crowe reports later. Once it becomes apparent how Noctis works, when he works best, they give him the nights. Noctis all but orders them to rest, pulling rank over the rest of them even when Nyx and Pelna try to out-argue him. Crowe sides with Noctis.

Eight hours over the course of three days, Noctis keeps them safe as they sleep. The troops come, one after another, each laden with more dangerous anti-magic materials, and one after the next Noctis takes them out, as silent and vicious as the first. The bodies disappear, never to be seen or found, and any trace of blood matter is long erased by the time Crowe and the boys wake again.

They pull their own stunts at morning, while Noctis rests. Exhausted, deep in sleep, not even bothering to throw back his hood or pull off his uniform. Just down onto the mat, no pillow, no blanket, out like a light.

He's Kingsglaive now, Crowe reports to Drautos. Bled and trained, ready to go just as they all are, dawn or dusk.

Drautos listens to the report, commends them for their work, passes intel they never expected to get over to Cor and his Crownsguard for fine-toothed combing so they can get an idea on where Nifleheim is planning to strike next.

The next evening, Drautos pulls her and Noctis aside.

"You've been formally recognized as trained in the Glaive Arts now, Highness. You're free to go whenever it suits you."

He says it like it's an option, but Crowe knows from experience that he means  _pack up, return your uniform and leave._ And everything in her hates the idea. But she can't go against it - not when it was meant to be a temporary thing, a teaching moment and nothing more.

Still. She doesn't forget the first day at the training hall, when he showed up despite his abrupt change in waking hours. Or the days after that, when everything he knew got turned on its head, and he kept going. The hours and minutes he spent with their little group, working with them, fighting and flirting and making a home for himself without meaning to.

For better or worse, he's one of theirs now. 

Crowe doesn't go against Drautos, when he orders Noctis out. But she waits until Drautos' back is turned before snapping Noctis' wrist in her hand, and hissing, "Hey, just because you're out of uniform don't mean you aren't one of ours. You come back to us."

The look on his face is one of utter disbelief - and it curls into far softer delight after mere moments. "Yeah," he agrees quietly. "Sure thing, ma'am."

"It's Crowe," she says, and hooks her arm around his neck, tugging him close. She'll deny it was ever a hug later. "And Noctis?"

"Yeah?"

"Hurry up and kiss that idiot already. I'm losing a bet over this bullshit."

He laughs, but he does kiss Nyx that evening at the bar. As Crowe collects her winnings over the disgruntled complaints of the lads, she meets Noctis' eyes, and smiles.

For Hearth and Home, she thinks. Now, it actually feels like it's ringing true.


End file.
